


A Literary Manifesto

by allthekingsmen (anglophileprussian)



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Literary References & Allusions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 01:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8125958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophileprussian/pseuds/allthekingsmen
Summary: Illya can speak English, and Solo knows Russian. That is not the problem. It becomes a problem the day that Illya comes to realize that, in the end, they are never speaking the same language.  
Or: a look at Illya Kuryakin's complex relationship with books, smarts, and himself. Oh, and Napoleon Solo of course.





	

It is the books Illya hoards. They are, despite everything in his life, his greatest secret. 

 

He did not read anything written except that which was produced in the USSR until he was far into his KGB training. It is not clear until many years even after that, that what he was allowed to read wasn’t all that Russia has to offer. 

It began with a worn-out copy of Doctor Zhivago. It is easy to find a copy in English - they were in every shop window in America for some time. Through a few contacts, he managed to get his hands on a Russian copy, originally sent around to members of the intellectual circles for review. Whoever had read it first hadn’t liked it very much: there are angry comments in the margins of almost half of the pages. 

Illya curses that the book is not small, and is hard to carry around with him. It and his watch are the only things he takes of personal value with him on missions. And it is one of the only items he brought with him to U.N.C.L.E. But even then, when he has a flat to live in in New York City, he prefers to take it with him. 

 

It had been begun in the conference in Brussels in 1958. 

He had been awarded the mission after he had been undercover in America for almost a year, ascertaining how much the CIA knew about the incidents in Kyshtym. Illya himself had been brought to the site once it was safe enough: it would not go well for the Americans to publicize such an incident when Soviet nuclear projects were only beginning to catch up to their own. It was not something Illya was supposed to know, or think about, but he heard it and thought about it all the same in those long months in America. 

So the conference was a break. He was simply monitoring the situation, available if any threats made themselves known. It was likely that back in Moscow, they were analyzing his conduct over the last few months to determine if he’d become a risk. The lack of trust was normal, and Illya didn’t mind it. He had nothing to hide. 

In between his shifts, he can walk through the different areas of the conference. It is not the first time he’s been to Western Europe, but he has never seen so many different people all in the same place. It was extravagant and he was almost offended by how often the bright lights and displays caught his eyes. 

Before he must return to his post, he stops in the parking lot for a cigarette. The habit was a necessity when posing as an American, but it was hard to break. That is where he saw the book for the first time. 

It had a dull blue cover - written in English, with the title ‘Doctor Zhivago’. The title is what makes him pick it up. Already it feels familiar in his mind. Certainly, there is a lot of downtime for this mission; he could use something to occupy his mind. And although he was proficient, it couldn’t hurt to improve his English, and blend in while doing it. 

And so he put the book into his pocket and eventually, unknowingly, smuggles propaganda into Moscow. 

 

He gives Solo a book as a joke. Illya has never seen the man read for pleasure before, and he always liked to make a fuss about having to read long files or background information before missions. 

“What is this?” Solo looks at the book as though it is something particularly contagious. 

“Oscar Wilde. He reminds me of you.”

“Does he?” The book is now taken, and examined. “It’s not a novel, is it?” 

Illya had considered it, but had decided that he did not like the implications of giving Napoleon Portrait of Dorian Gray. “It is a play, and some essays. You will like them.”

Solo looks at them the same way he does when choosing groceries or guns: flipping through pages as though he can determine the quality of the thing by observation alone. But he takes the book, and Illya sees him put it into his suitcase before they leave. Now that he’s given it, he’s not sure how he’ll feel if Solo ever read it. 

 

Oddly enough, Illya is rather nervous about the whole thing. He remembers the first time he read the article “The Critic as an Artist”, but he and Solo are very much not the same person. Oscar Wilde was a poor choice, he realizes. It said too much. 

He never brings up the book, and it is never mentioned again. 

 

The thing was, he moved from the Ukraine to Moscow when he was very young. 

If he had stayed in Ukraine - if his father hadn’t been promoted - they would have stayed with their family, and probably starved to death. His father’s new position saved them. Illya, scrawny and small as a child, had a growth spurt that rendered him unrecognizable to anyone who had known him before. When he got his last few centimeters, his father had already been sent away, and the difference haunted Illya. His father would not have recognized his own son. 

But it is his size, now, that saved him and his mother. There was no use for small, scrawny men but when he grew, he attracted some attention. His mother was able to convince one of their former friends to sponsor his entry into training for the KGB. From there, Illya could prove his worth to his government, and save their family like his father once did. 

Whatever interests or pursuits he’d had before meant nothing. He must be valuable. He must show his worth, or he was nothing. There was nothing else left. 

 

He does not even remember what he might have read as a child. His memories of those time are of the soft motions of his mother’s voice, the calm stalk steadiness of his father’s low timbre. Whatever words there might have been, he does not know. In KGB, words are meaningless compared to what you can do with your hands. He is an agent of strength, they tell him. He is not allowed to take classes or read books again. 

The first library he ever saw was in New York City, following a target. Naive, childish, his first thought is that someone must have read all of these books. He didn’t know you could have books just to keep for later, or to share. 

They employees tell him that he can take whatever he wants for free. He takes, and takes and does not give back. At first, it is because he does not know better. After that, it is because he presumes they can afford the loss. His stolen treasures are kept in his safehouse for those 9 months in America until he must leave. Presumably, someone brings them back to the library when they clean up. 

 

It is funny, when he realizes that Don Juan is something all cultures seem to share. 

He uses it to describe Napoleon after he has had a particularly ‘productive’ day - the man having convinced two different women to come to his hotel room and timed them accordingly. It is probably not taken as a compliment even in Western society, but Solo seems to think it is one. Perhaps because he’s never read any of the poems. 

The English poem is not too hard to find - the woman at the bookstore knew what he meant without him having to explain anything. The words have that strange, forced rhyme scheme the British had been so fond of at one point and that he cannot pretend to enjoy, but it does remind him of the poem he had learned. 

“Up to your old tricks, but never guilty,” he accuses Napoleon. “Your carelessness will get you in trouble.” 

“Not all of us can be smart like you.”

Illya cannot think of anything to say, and Napoleon takes it as leave to go on flirting with their breakfast waitress. He has never been called smart before .

He tries to read Byron before going to bed. It’s tossed to the side almost immediately for something more to his liking, but he got far enough to find what he was looking for: 

_He was a mortal of the careless kind,_  
_With no great love for learning, or the learn'd,_  
_Who chose to go where'er he had a mind_

Napoleon is the sort of creature poems will always be written about. There are no subtle, simple words that can describe whatever cruel, fluttering being he is. And whether in Russia or in the West, ‘Don Juan’ is not a compliment. 

 

The book they give him in camp is one for children. He is 17 already when they hand it to him.

“Read it out loud.”

He does not question, but does as he is told. It is the story of a group of village children who band together to do good for their community. Page after page of words and pictures he goes through, until his commander is satisfied. 

“That is sufficient.” It is a word often used here. ‘Sufficient’ means enough - the goal. To be more is to be too much. “You have passed the reading portion of your examination, and may continue into the next room for your physical.”

Illya stands mechanically, and puts the book back down on the table. He is dismissed, and does not see the book again. 

 

The fact that he could read well was an unexpected boon for each one of his commanding officers. In the Navy, they took each injury of his as an excuse to have him reading and writing reports for them. They say his handwriting is finer than any of theirs: unfitting an attack dog such as himself. He pretends to take it as a compliment. 

It is odd, because he does not remember ever learning how to read and write. Perhaps it is part of the childhood that he has washed away, having tossed parts of himself into the sea for safekeeping. His anger already makes him vulnerable to others; he does not want to leave himself more open than he must. 

He reads reports, lists of coordinates for targets, and eventually backgrounds of the men and women they are after. 

He reads a book of poetry, given to him by one of the many men he had to bunk with in the academy. The boy was almost blind with his glasses, and only kept because he had a head for numbers like no one could believe. Perhaps he gave the book to Illya because he had, quite literally, never been able to see what sort of man Illya was. 

“I hope you like it,” the boy tells him. He is awkward and shy, almost blushing at the very act of speech. 

Holding the book in his hands, Illya can feel what he should say on his tongue. But he chooses instead to say “thank you” with as much sincerity as he feels. Clutches the book with his hands, swarmed with an unfamiliar sort of hunger he’s glad cannot be seen. 

The boy is transferred away from their camp within that week, and Illya never sees him again. 

 

Illya knows nothing of poems. If there is a way they should be, he would not recognize it. 

The poems he finds feel soft, and calm. They hold feeling, offer it to him in cupped hands for him to drink and feel himself. He indulges in the evening when he has a moment, pages lit by the setting sun. The time is stolen entirely for himself.

It is the most selfish thing he has ever done, he thinks. He hides the book where it will never be found, because even if he goes away and dies somewhere, he wants that book to stay exactly as it is. For someone else to read it would destroy his perfect link to it. So he retrieves it whenever he can, and mouths the words he sees there. 

_“We aged a hundred years,”_ he says, _“and this descended in just one hour, at a stroke-.”_

He is called by the sounds of voices, moving towards the mess hall not too far away. Closing the book, he prepares to hide it again. 

 

At times, he wishes he could write down his anger. Translate it into something at peace, free him from its horrible shaking and silence his existence is cursed with. 

He has never been taught the words for anger - has had them beaten out of him. Perhaps because of it, he prefers the words of calm. He is not something that can be written about in poems, because he is not meant to last. Poems cannot die. 

When he looks through a man’s house, tearing apart a traitor’s life, he sees the books the man has read. They are to be taken away and burned, officially, but some of the men like to look through them for pornography or personal letters. It is partially for pleasure, and partially a search for weapons and survival. 

Illya takes the books when he can, makes his own safehouses where they can stay. 

One night, they find a copy of Doctor Zhivago tucked beneath a young man’s mattress. He cannot take it (does not need it) and lets it burn with the others. By then, he has heard of what this book means, what the government has said it is about. He would believe it if he hadn’t read it himself. 

When he raids houses, he thinks that his own house must have been raided when he was a child. It is one of the memories he has washed away. What kinds of books would his childhood home have held, he wonders? 

 

“What it is that you get from all the books you keep reading?” Napoleon asks him one day. 

Gaby is willing to defend him, “Some people enjoy reading, if you can believe it.” 

“Even if I suspend my disbelief that much, you only read dry books, Peril. You should borrow one of Teller’s mysteries.” 

“I have read mysteries,” Illya defends. Dickens had written the first detective story, but he does not say as much. 

Napoleon scoffs. “Why would you rather spend a night reading,” he pronounces the word with disdain, “than out with us, getting drinks and having fun.”

Illya has always made his own entertainment, and is uncomfortable with the thought of merging it with others. He does not say so, but chooses to say instead, “I like books.”

“But why?” 

“We do not all speak the same, even in the same language. I like to hear how others speak.” 

It warrants the folding of Solo’s newspaper, and direct gaze. This is an event in itself, because Napoleon enjoys ignoring people who are speaking to him. “That’s almost profound, Peril.” 

Gaby smiles, as though she too has been complimented. She is always very pleased when one of them manages to say something decent to the other, even though she usually sides with Illya. Illya choses to believe it is because he is usually right, and not because Napoleon is simply more annoying. 

 

The thing is, Napoleon is not stupid. 

It seems obvious to Illya, though it fails to occur to anyone else. Solo never got to finish high school or get a degree, but he was an international art thief. Although not familiar with the task, Illya imagines it would require quite a bit of skill and an immense understanding of art. 

There are words from Pushkin that remind Illya of them both, however different they are:  
_I put up craft_  
_To constitute the pedestal of art._  
_I turned into a craftsman: to my fingers_  
_I taught submissive, dry dexterity;_  
_My ear, precision._

They are both masters at what they have become. In Illya’s mind, it is as simple as that. And knowledge, he knows well, is something you can find in all manner of ways. 

When they walk by a private gallery one night, he remembers to ask the question: “Did you always like art?” 

Casting a glance backwards at the gallery they have just passed, Napoleon gives one of his many careless shrugs. “I suppose.” 

“Can you draw? Or paint?” 

“Not well. I took more to sculpting than anything else.” 

“Let me guess: you are good with your hands?”

Napoleon lets out a barked laugh that almost gives them away entirely. Satisfied, Illya grins to himself a moment before getting back to the job at hand. 

 

There is an idea that he has heard, that you never understand yourself entirely. That you are never fully revealed to yourself, or the world except through how others see you. It is not something Illya likes to think about in regards to himself, but it seems as though Napoleon Solo has braced the idea entirely. If the author had known Solo, perhaps he would have written the inverse too: you cannot only be seen, and contain nothing inside yourself. Certainly, someone should tell Napoleon that. 

Not to say that there isn’t something to be said of Napoleon Solo as he pretends to be. The Don Juan, the seducer - there is a place for him in the world of words. He is made entirely of words, in some ways. If any of them should turn writer, it is he. 

Although he hates the man, Byron had it right in some ways: “one shade the more, one ray the less, had half impaired the nameless grace”: these kinds of beauties are so often constructed. It just so happens that Solo had taken it upon himself to be his own creator. It is hard to imagine such a man creating something other than himself. 

“Do you have any of your sculptures left?” Illya asks in Napoleon’s apartment in New York. The place is filled with art - probably illegally obtained - to the point that it looks cluttered instead of classy. It is perhaps the one thing of Napoleon Illya’s seen and truly believed to be real. 

“Most of them are in museums,” the man admits. 

“Because you took the originals?”

Another one of his shrugs. “I made some miniatures, back when I was a student-” 

“You were not a student.” 

The casual calm of Napoleon Solo shatters for a moment. His hand retracts and his drink is set down slightly less than carefully. 

“Of course. You’re completely right,” he says, and closes of entirely. Is completely useless and absurd the rest of the evening. 

Illya very often hates being right, and does not know what he’s done wrong this time. 

 

Perhaps he enjoys reading because it offers understanding. It is not often that he has had the privilege of holding answers; he is told that what he does is right. There is something comforting in being able to interpret for himself. 

It takes him their first three months to realize that he does not have to understand Napoleon Solo. 

There is a book still hidden at his old training camp. When they are forced to revisit it, in search of an old teacher gone rogue, he finds it again, untouched. He has waited for Solo to distract himself with a radio transmission back to Gaby, so he can pull it out and feel the cracks in its spine again. It is the only friend he greets with pleasure in this so familiar place. 

They only have a campfire on such a cold evening, in makeshift tent outside the bounds of the KGB’s reach. Russia would not be happy to find out they were there, Illya knows. It is new to both know and not care about such things. 

“What is that?” Napoleon asks. It had been foolish to think that he would not notice it eventually. 

“A book.”

“Only you could find a book in the middle of Siberia.”

It is not worth noting that they are nowhere near Siberia - it is an expression, Illya has learned, not to be taken literally. Americans (and Germans) seem to enjoy using words they do not mean, to make another kind of meaning entirely. 

When Napoleon is shot, bleeding into dirt and snow, Illya takes him back to their camp so that U.N.C.L.E can find them. It is there, when they are lying stuck together with filth, that Napoleon asks him, “would you read me something, so I can stay awake?” 

He does not have to open his book to know what to say. _“Memory of sun ebbs from the heart. Grass fades early. Wind blows the first snowflakes, barely, barely.”_

He whispers Russian poems through the night. Napoleon hardly moves, only rolling onto his side so his face is pressed into Illya’s chest, protected from the wind. If he keeps speaking these lines, then they will be safe. In all his time with the KGB, his poems have never been interrupted - they have kept him safe all this time. Now they will keep them both safe here, together. 

 

Hospitals are places for reading. It is quiet and there is very little movement. While Napoleon fusses in the bed beside him, Illya can quietly request something to read to pass his time recovering. He does not say, but it is the first time he’s been allowed to simply rest in a very long time. 

Perhaps Napoleon remembers, or maybe he doesn’t. But he asks Illya one afternoon, when all of the nurses have been scolded and gone away, “Read me a story.”

“No thank you.” 

“You’ve got your books; what am I supposed to do?”

“You could read.”

He does not need to look up from his book to see the unimpressed look on Napoleon’s face. He can imagine it quite well from experience. The next page is turned loudly. 

“What are you reading anyways?”

“Could you please just entertain yourself?” He winces at the innuendo and cuts off Napoleon’s retort before he can make it, “why don’t you draw something?”

“I’m no artist.”

“It doesn’t matter,” and under his breath, Illya adds, “At least it’ll keep your hands occupied.”

Napoleon does not argue, so he hopes that his partner has found something to occupy himself. There is a great deal of rustling and contained groans, and the sound of pencil and paper. He had taken Illya’s advice after all. 

Even when Dickens is at his most interesting, he cannot keep Illya from glancing up to see. Napoleon seems entirely engrossed, with the tip of his tongue at the corner of his mouth in great concentration. Suddenly, he begins speaking again. 

“Did you ever hear the story of the artist who fell in love with his own statue?” 

“Pygmalion.” 

“That’s the one.” Napoleon turns the paper around - he’s using the back of his own medical records of course. “It’s Greek, isn’t it? There is a painting of Pygmalion and Galatea in the Met that I always liked. It’s a bit like Narcissus, isn’t it? Falling in love with your work is almost the same as falling in love with yourself.” 

There is a silence, because Illya has no idea what he’s supposed to say to that. If Napoleon expected something, he says nothing, doesn’t even look up. After a few more minutes, he turns to a new page almost as loudly as Illya had done. 

 

It turns out, Napoleon has one friend who survived the war. He is English, introduces himself only as ‘Charlie’, and finds Illya remarkable. It is also worth noting that he is almost dangerously homosexual. Not in his dress, or in his way of speech, or even in the way that he flirts with Napoleon. It’s dangerous in the way that he seems to have seen Illya and zeroed in on him. 

“How are you finding the West?” he asks over drinks. He has invited them all to dinner but has not stopped looking at Illya since he’s sat down. Gaby has been hiding snickers all evening, and Napoleon hasn’t even the grace to look embarrassed by his friends behavior. There will be no aid from either of them, Illya imagines. 

“It is interesting. I have had many … opportunities to travel.” Charlie has no idea what Napoleon has been doing (or perhaps what he’d done when they’d been serving together). Illya has no idea how to speak of himself except as an agent. 

“Oh? Where to?”

“... All over.” 

Gaby snorts loudly into her drink, but Charlie is not dissuaded. “What is it you do exactly, while traveling? If you’re anything like Solo, you’ve probably seen every club in Europe!” 

“Actually, he Illya studies books,” Napoleon interjects. “He’s not one for clubbing.” 

Illya wants to interject, but cannot pretend that what his partner has said isn’t true. He chooses to huff in displeasure, and take a long sip of his drink. 

“Literature? I never would have pegged you as the type, looking like-...”

Illya raises an eyebrow and reminds himself that this man is nothing to be angry about. “Like what?” 

Waving his hand at Illya as if to indicate the entirety of it, Charlie merely says. “That,” and changes tack. “I did English as one of my A-levels, so I still remember a bit. Auden maybe: ‘I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped-’”

“Please stop.” 

Charlie grins. It is the mean kind of smile of someone with an edge, pushing at a crack until they can force the break. It looks too much like Napoleon at his worst. Illya stands up. He can feel his cheeks flushing like a child, all the way to his pale neck. “I am very tired, and must go. Goodnight Solo, Gaby.” 

He does not like these words used against him, like they shared some secret understanding or language together. Such poems are not supposed to be spoken out loud. He is disgusted with himself for recognizing it in the first place.

 

When he choses to think about sex, he does not think of Auden. His words are crass and remind Illya of the closets at the academy, or of toilet stalls and hotel beds. That Napoleon’s friend could detect Auden in him somehow is frightening in a way that few things have been since he left training. 

But it is not Auden that frightens him most in the end. It is when he looks at Napoleon and mouths to himself “rose-rock, rose-quartz, roses, roses, roses” that he knows what has happened - the only love poem he has ever remembered. If he is to think of men, then he should be thinking in terms of Auden and bathrooms and horrible, dead words. But when he sees Napoleon fall asleep beside him in the plane, head tilted down and body curled inward like a child, he thinks of those roses again. 

Perhaps he should have known, as soon as he first spoke poetry to Napoleon. He had never shared it before with anyone, but it is all he thinks about when they are together. He wants to ascribe meaning, understanding to his partner. Render him knowable in the only way he knows how. For a man with such a physical body, he thinks too much. U.N.C.L.E have given him too much leeway, and it will ruin him. 

 

“You seem to think we are all very complicated,” Napoleon comments. They are watching a target in a cafe, sipping at Italian coffees. By far one of the best stakeouts Illya has ever been on. 

“We?”

“People.” 

“I’ve never said that.” 

“No,” Napoleon agrees. “You don’t say things. But you think them. You get this furrow in your brow when you do.” He makes an uncomfortable expression by pursing his mouth and squinting: an imitation of Illya, no doubt. “Do you ever stop thinking?”

“It is good for an agent to stay alert at all times.” 

Napoleon hums and sips at the espressos he likes so much. They always give him a pleased smile, like he’s found something splendid. “It’s no wonder Gaby gave up on you. You’re quite exhausting sometimes, you know.” 

It is not kind to throw how he had felt about Gaby in his face, and Napoleon is well aware of that. Illya can only remember almost kissing her on the carpet with deep embarrassment. There is no rosy-tinged poetry there for him. “Perhaps you should think more, then?”

“Oh, I’m fine thank you. Should we be going?” 

In his glass’ reflection, Illya can see their target leaving the cafe. Leaving money for the bill, they quickly follow. As always, it is as if the conversation had never happened. If only they were so lucky that they could speak in sync the way their bodies seem to be. 

 

Illya remembers his first assignment out of the USSR. He had been maybe 19. It was to kill a man, prove himself in the eyes of his superiors. No one had expected anything less than success. 

The KGB are stern in Russia, but in Vienna they are lax, loose even. The man he is staying with is a handsome senior agent, tasked with heading all operations in the city and the surrounding countryside. Illya never would have met him if his transport hadn’t been delayed two days, but he joins his fellow agent for breakfast. 

He hardly even knows the right words for what happened. The senior agent asked if he was tired. Did he want to go to bed? He had only just woken up, but there was something in the man’s eyes Illya recognized. Studying the hands on the table, the broad shoulders, he can feel the man’s gaze regarding him in turn. Illya hears himself agree to go back to sleep. 

Neither of them go to sleep. Hours later, Illya slips out of bed, pulls on his clothes, and disappears into the streets of Vienna to lose himself entirely. His skin feels tight with awareness and he wants to lose himself in his head again. His own body is alien to him. 

In one of the outdoor markets, he finds rows of books with unfamiliar titles, presses his fingers to them as if to absorb their meanings. From there, he wanders the streets for hours so that he does not have to return to that house, where the lazy KGB agent is waiting. When he does go back, they have sex again before he has to go. 

 

One day, Illya gives Napoleon a poem, aware that the man will not know what it means. By giving it away, he is letting his feelings and thoughts go forever. He does not want them anymore. 

He comes into the agent’s room early in the morning, when even his female guests would have gone - but he is alone. Asleep, curled in his bed into the smallest possible shape. Illya allows himself this last moment to think that Napoleon looks alone in that large bed, by himself. _Rose-rock, rose-quartz._ Fragile, sturdy - back and forth in his mind. 

The paper is put into the inside pocket of Napoleon’s best jacket. In his mind, the matter is finally settled. 

 

But then he is woken at 6AM to furious knocking. It is loud enough that he must go to the door before his neighbors wake up. 

“What are you doing?” he demands, already expecting Napoleon. The man is not even dressed except in a robe and slippers. There is no reason for him even to be awake. 

“I don’t want this,” Napoleon tells him in an angry hiss. “I was looking for a cigarette and I-, I don’t want this. Take it.” 

He thrusts Illya’s poem into Illya’s hands and storms down the hall in a dramatic pique. Luckily he is gone before anyone else in his hall looks in to see what has happened. Humiliated, Illya ducks back into his room, paper crumpled into his fist. He has never shaken before in any emotion other than anger but here, he quakes. Dissolves into his meaner parts and, finally, evaporates into nothing. Unaware of how much time has passed, he feels numb. 

The paper - _“There’s a secret border in human closeness...,”_ is thrown into the garbage bin, feelings unwanted by both parties. 

 

When he once leaned against the walls behind the academy to read the same lines again and again, Illya now reads in lavish hotels, or pressed together with his partners during a stakeout. While he has lost the calm isolation he had once craved, he’s found there is something almost as soothing in the steady cadence of someone in the next room, or the breathing of someone beside him. He only knows what he has found when he loses it to Napoleon’s temper. 

His change had come about so gradually, it was hard to see now much Napoleon had softened in their hands until he was suddenly stiff and foreign again. It hurt, the first time he heard Napoleon’s scheming when it didn’t involve him. He had forgotten how cruel the man could be when he didn’t consider you interesting. 

 

“Did you make this?” Gaby asks him in the morning. She’s come with breakfast for the both of them: Napoleon had gone out early that morning to replace Gaby on surveillance, a job he had eagerly volunteered for as it prevented his breakfasting with Illya. 

“What?”

Hand on his book, she lowers it so he can see the paper put in front of him. It is a drawing of a hospital bed. His hospital bed.

He has no right to be protective, but his first response is to demand, “where did you find this?”

“It was in your jacket pocket, the one you got shot in. We just got it back from the tailor.” 

The hospital drawing is finer than anything Illya has ever seen outside of a museum. There are smudges for shadows and sunlight, darkness in every corner, but the bed - his bed- was light. Drawn very small was a tiny figure of him, lying on the bed facing the artist and reading. Illya is certain that he has never looked quite like this. 

“It is mine.” Illya is certain it was meant to be a gift, one he missed entirely. Neither of them are men of words, but this picture speaks. “A gift,” he repeats to himself. He has never had a gift before. 

“He tries to give you gifts - you don’t have to be so cruel to him, you know.”

‘Cruel’ - the word is so out of place that Illya doesn’t understand what it means for a moment. “I have not been cruel.”

“Napoleon showed me the note you sent him - don’t be upset,” she cut him off immedietely, “he was only asking for my help: he didn’t know what the thing meant. You really could have put him down more nicely.” 

“I didn’t-”. Illya understands poetry. He understands books and writing in more languages than he can speak, for he speaks very poorly. His idea on passing on the message in a poem was to express himself easier than his poor mouth ever could. It had never occurred to him that Napoleon did not speak this same language. 

“I’ve made a mistake.” 

Perhaps it is the one, or the sheer novelty of a stubborn man making a mistake that makes Gaby seem so surprised. She is less important than everything else, and Illya hurries out the door without finishing breakfast. 

 

There were museums in Moscow. The subway trains alone taught him more about art than all of his time training at the academy. He had been to art auctions, art exhibits, warehouses of art even, but he’d never sat at a museum and looked at the paintings. 

He has to ask where the museum in Budapest even is, but he finds it eventually. The lobby is large and open, with balconies and hidden alcoves. The space makes him feel vulnerable and bare, but he buys his ticket and tries to find his way around. The terms and descriptions on the map mean very little to him, so he wanders around without a plan, glancing quickly at some paintings only to circle back around again and look more closely. 

He is trying to find the meaning here. Even when he knows the subject of the painting, he doesn’t understand what it is saying - like he can hear the silence where a voice should be. But there is a painting - a traveling exhibition of some kind - that he knows as soon as he sees it. Dido on her couch, preparing to die. 

“I shall die unavenged, but let me die,” Illya whispers, smiling. He sees the horror of Aeneas’ betrayal in those eyes, body splayed across the cushions like one already dead. There is a bit in the light - like those shadows waiting to take her away - that he recognizes. Not only in that full, tugging way of familiar words - something real. 

With one hand, he pulls out his own picture. It seemed that, in some ways, they could understand each other. 

 

He presses the folded picture in between pages of George Elliot’s Middlemarch, safe in her reasonable hands. It does not take much to convince Gaby to take his shift: she seems thankful that he’s going to get the whole thing resolved. If she feels any disgust towards either of their inclinations, she hides it well. 

Napoleon comes in late - probably went to get a drink on his way back. He’s understandably surprised when he spots Illya in their living area. 

“Shouldn’t you be watching Nagy’s house?”

“Gaby is taking my shift.”

“She had last night.” 

“I know.” Illya raises both eyebrows to dare Napoleon into saying any more about it. 

Instead of responding, Napoleon makes a show of rolling his shoulders and taking off his jacket, beelining for the wet bar. Illya allows him the time to pour himself a drink before he speaks. 

“I found your drawing. It was in my pocket still when it went off to the tailor.”

“Ah,” Napoleon takes down the whole drink in one go. “I was wondering where that’d gone off to. One of my better attempts.”

“You said you cannot draw. You are very good.”

“My third grade teacher Mrs. Dombroski said I was the best in the class.”

Deflection, of course. Illya changes courses, thankful he had a few drinks already himself. It makes it easy to speak. “The poem I gave you - it doesn’t mean what you think it means.” 

“Really? Pray tell, because I was a terrible English student,” Napoleon snaps, temper starting to get the better of his attempt at calm. 

“It was an apology.”

It’s obviously not what he was expecting. “What? For what?”

“That I can’t-” Illya breathes in. Words are what he understands, he reminds himself. “Feel... the way I’m supposed to. About you.”

There is a pause as Napoleon sets down his glass too loudly in the otherwise silent room. He folds himself gracelessly into the chair across from Illya and stares. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“We are partners. The best,” Illya adds. “But I do not think of you as partner. Gaby is partner.” 

And he’s up again: Napoleon comes up out of the chair so he can stand in front of Illya, look down on him this time. Illya cannot read people, does not understand his own lurching feelings let alone the puzzle of Napoleon’s face. 

“What am I then?” 

Rose-rock, rose-quartz. Illya blurts it out - “beautiful.” 

Napoleon leans down in one, smooth flow to bring their lips together. It is short, almost sweet, before he pulls away to say, “I always knew you were smart.” 

It is not the time or place to roll his eyes, so Illya pulls them back together.

 

 

_Rose-rock, rose-quartz._ Napoleon makes a splendid, quiet moan when Illya nips at his neck, cutting off his train of thought. 

His book of French poetry has been tossed to the side on the floor somewhere - it had started all of this. Napoleon had come in late, smelling strongly of strange perfume, and he’d chuckled when he’d seen what Illya was up late reading. 

“I never suspected you as the sort to read dirty poetry. You always seem so wholesome,” Napoleon teased. It would have annoyed Illya if he hadn’t seen how genuinely pleased Napoleon was by the idea. 

So instead of protesting in favor of Baudelaire’s integrity, Illya had pulled half of the duvet cover down so Napoleon could climb in. Sometimes his partner liked to make a game of getting into bed together, but Illya was not in the mood. Napoleon had been out flirting and charming all afternoon for information, and it made Illya long for the genuine smiles of pleasure he’d grown accustomed to. 

Not even making a show of getting undressed, Napoleon climbed into bed beside him, drooping against his chest in obvious exhaustion. That brief moment of genuine feeling was enough to spur Illya to kiss the crown of his head. Somehow, even Napoleon’s hair smelled comforting to the Russian.

The genuine pleasure in the gentle sigh Napoleon gave was too much - Illya crained his neck and soon they were kissing, turning in the sheets to press up against each other. Sometimes, Illya enjoyed just pressing down on Napoleon and showering him with soft, teasing kisses just to see how Napoleon’s hands became impatient, grasping onto him all over and pulling at him to do something. After a few more kisses, down Napoleon’s chest, punctuating his bellybutton and the trail of hair leading downwards, he finally lets Napoleon’s desperate hand guide him downward. 

Underwear is quickly tossed to the side with Baudelaire. Eyes flicking upward for just a moment, he imprints the image of Napoleon above him, mouth open and back bowed desperately. He gives the tip of Napoleon’s cock a light brush of the lips just to hear him keen.

“Could you please just-” 

Illya takes him into his mouth - his new, favorite way of shutting the man up. The sheets pool around them both as they shift up the bed. His hands brace, keep him from bucking up. There is such satisfaction in having his hands pressed on both sides of Napoleon’s smooth, narrow hips that he hums in pleasure. The added bonus is that Napoleon groans, changing in pitch when Illya presses with his tongue. 

“God you-.” One of Napoleon’s hands grasps desperately for Illya’s hair, running his fingers through the short strands and tugging slightly whenever Illya swallows just a little more. Illya can always tell when Napoleon is about to come because he reaches down to cup Illya’s jaws as he pulls away, pulling them even closer when he reaches his climax. 

His pleased, glassy smile is all that it takes for Illya take his own cock in his hand. After a few pulls, Napoleon’s own messy fingers thread in between his just to feel his cock work through their palms. If Illya dares to look up, he’ll see that look of concentration he knows so well: wide, darkened eyes and hungry mouth. When Napoleon recovers enough, he kisses Illya like he wants to devour him, swallowing moans until Illya comes into their hands. 

Feeling kind, Napoleon goes to the bathroom for a towel to clean them up. The sheets, Illya decides, are a lost cause - kicked off the foot of the bed for the maids to deal with. As Napoleon comes back, handing off the towel, he bends over to pick up the book they’d tossed aside. 

“Is it any good?” he asks, climbing back into bed under the duvet. 

Illya shrugs, and puts the book to the side so he can lie down next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the nerdiest thing I've ever done. I've had this fic sitting around for about a year now and I decided today that I might as well make all that research I did into Russian literature worth something. If you disagree with my characterization of Illya as a bookworm that's fine. Considering the TV show, I think it's perfectly sensible. 
> 
> Here I will provide you with the terrifying list of citations and explanatory notes: 
> 
> “Up to your old tricks, but never guilty” ~ The Stone Guest, Pushkin
> 
> He was a mortal of the careless kind, With no great love for learning, or the learn'd, Who chose to go where'er he had a mind ~ “Don Juan” by Lord Byron (Canto 1)
> 
> Timur and his Squad ~ 1940 
> 
> We aged a hundred years and this descended/ In just one hour, as at a stroke. ~ “In Memorium, July 19, 1914” by
> 
> Illya is (probably unintentionally) referring to the idea of heteroglossia. It’s the concept that within a single language, there is variation because of inherent individuality. So he’s saying that he likes to read the words of other people, even when they’re saying the same thing. Because we all say it differently. Right? No? 
> 
> I put up craft  
> To constitute the pedestal of art.  
> I turned into a craftsman: to my fingers  
> I taught submissive, dry dexterity;  
> My ear, precision. Having stifled sounds,  
> I cut up music like a corpse.~ “Mozart and Salieri” by Pushkin
> 
> One shade the more, one ray the less,/ Had half impaired the nameless grace/ Which waves in every raven tress ~ ‘She Walks In Beauty’ by Lord Byron
> 
> Memory of sun ebbs from the heart./ Grass fades early./ Wind blows the first snowflakes/ Barely, barely. ~ ‘Memory of sun ebbs from the heart.’ 
> 
> Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Léon Gérôme
> 
> “I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped” - “The Platonic Blow (A Day For A Lay)” by WH Auden (aka the worst poem about a blow job you’ll ever read. poor Illya)
> 
> “rose-rock, rose-quartz, roses, roses, roses” ~ ”Vague Poem” by Elizabeth Bishop 
> 
> “I shall die unavenged, but let me die” ~ translation of The Aeneid, by Virgil (Book 4)
> 
> The least accurate thing about this whole story is that anyone would be stupid enough to carry around a copy of Middlemarch. It’s like packing a particularly clever brick. Chosen because it is considered the pinnacle of ‘realistic’ fiction, which moves away from melodrama to the sensible. A less than subtle hint for them both


End file.
